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Uncap Your Modem, Get Visit From the FBI
FlightSimGuy writes "The Blade wrote this article about how seven men were arrested by FBI agents with guns drawn and indicted by a local grand jury for allegedly "reconfiguring computer systems to access excessive amounts of bandwidth". Apparently the provider, Buckeye Cable Systems, wanted to make an example out of the men. According to the company's attourney, "Cyber crime is potentially very damaging to society. We are taking a firm position on that type of criminal activity. We hope these cases will have a deterrent value...""
I don't see anything in the linked article about FBI agents pointing their guns at anybody.
Can we quit adding sensationalist crap to story summaries? Please?
Isn't this no different the pirating pay-per-view, or stealing cable all together via illegal descrambler.
Personally I think a good lawyer can make minced meat out of the prosecution in this case.
Yep.
Help savingAmigaOS and a free PowerPC market
But to borrow a better phrase from that pool, they have "devious plans"
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The FBI is a field-oriented organization in which FBI Headquarters (FBIHQ) in Washington, D.C., provides program direction and support services to 56 field offices, approximately 400 satellite offices known as resident agencies, four specialized field installations, and more than 40 foreign liaison posts. The foreign liaison offices, each of which is headed by a Legal Attache or Legal Liaison Officer, work abroad with American and local authorities on criminal matters within FBI jurisdiction.
The FBI has approximately 11,400 Special Agents and over 16,400 other employees who perform professional, administrative, technical, clerical, craft, trade, or maintenance operations. About 9,800 employees are assigned to FBIHQ; nearly 18,000 are assigned to field installations.
So a handfull of agents here is no big deal. Stealing is stealing, bandwidth is not exempt.
Get a free ipod.
Why is the article posting the FULL names including street adresses ... This would be highly illegal in most of the rest of the world
I don't think it's illegal here, but it is very rare to see that. I imagine the author of that piece will get slapped around for doing it, but maybe not. Who knows, this may be the norm for that community.
including street adresses of the fugitives (and that is what they are at this point, i guess)?
What makes them fugitives? In the US, they are suspects (innocent until proven guilty and all that). Additionally, they'd have to be on the run in order to be a fugitive. According to the article, they were only just recently indicted. Arrests usually follow indictment.
Note that the article is already a few days old.
If by "descramblers themselves are not illegal", you mean they're not illegal to own, that's correct. Using one to receive service not authorized by the cable operator, on the other hand, has a maximum federal penalty of a $1000 fine and 6 mos in prison. They're also entitled to civil penalties of at least $250 and not more than $10000 at the judge's discretion.
The 1943 Act has been heavily amended since it's original passage, most applicably by USC 47S553.
> IANAL, but this seems to me to be a violation of a CONTRACT, not a criminal act!
Actually, it's both. There can be civil actions to recover losses due to the breach of contract. But there can also be criminal actions since the unauthorized use of service is a federal (hence FBI not state or local police coming in) offense.
Well, being slightly technically savvy myself, I'll point out that it's actually the underlying phsyics of a copper wire, plus the existing POTS architecture that limited things to "56k". Not to mention that the number is 99.99999% marketing hype, and practical use never could realize more than a slight and brief increase over the previous 33.6k... which itself was fairly heavy voodoo.
But yeh... I tend to agree with the sentiment that the FBI goons raiding you for modifying your own property is generally bad. The lesson here, is the internet is too empowering for the common man to be allowed to use it for more than a few small emails (which are safe now that they have carnivore). They'd be happy to let monopolistic market forces price internet service out of everyone's budget, but people who try to avoid that need to be dealt with harshly.
Yawn . . . .
/. duplicate as well.
This is not only an ancient story, but a
Can we at least make an attempt to keep the "news" timely???
FBI 'raids' have already occured on people uncapping their hardware to take up more bandwidth. And all the same arguments were provided last time this was on slashdot.
Lets sum them up.
1) This is lame, its not like its a real crime!
Answer : This is a real crime. Uncapping your modem increases your use of the ISP's equipment. Not only does this steal from the ISP, it is also detrimental to the other users of the service.
2) Why is the FBI involved, thats Overkill?
Answer: The FBI are involved because the only two agencies with jursdiction in america over Network Crimes which may pass in and out of normal police lines are the Secret Service and the FBI. Who do you prefer to have knocking on your door?
3) I bought this modem, its my property and I am alowed to change the settings on it as I wish.
Answer: Okay, lets make an analogy. I own some magnetic swipe plastic cards. Using a card programer I also own, I program these cards to match other peoples credit cards. I then go out and buy stuff. I've only used my property to do that, so its not illegal right?
4) They can solve this problem at the router side anyway! They dont have to mess around the users.
This is just flat wrong. Any distributed network, especialy wan systems that share contention, can be damaged by individual network stations. There is no way to get around this. You can only stop them off at the network segments you directly control, but by then the proformance of any network segments prior to that may have been degraded. A badly configured modem/home router sending oddly configured packets in an atempt to 'fix' their access can do bad things to a network.
It's simple. It's not a matter of the modem being "crippled". The design of the cable network requires each end point device to throttle service. All cable modems can be configured for differ throttle settings. The ISP stores the proper setup information for each subscriber and automatically configures the cable modem according to the level of service purchased. The source of the modem is irrelevant, the ISP alwasys sets the proper service levels whenever the device is powered up or rebooted. When people hack their modem, they are interfering with the ISP's management of thier network. It's not a crime to uncap your modem as long as it isn't connected to the ISP's WAN.
Apparently this is the second time my city (Toledo) has used the FBI for this. Anyways, I'm pretty sure the Blade always has extensive coverage of this because the same family owns the Blade and the local cable company (which has a cable monopoly in Toleod and its surrounding areas).
I suspect your mixing some terms there. A 256kbps is 256 kiloBITS per second, thats the equivelent of only 32 KILOBYTES (which is what most programs measure downloads in) per second. My guess is that you were saying you only get 70-100k (kilobytes, not bits) in which case you're getting much more than your gaurenteed amount.
If you were truly only getting 70kbps or 100kbps, that would be extremely sad. 70 kilobits per second is just under 9 Kilobytes per second, thats slower than shotgun 56k, and just a hair faster than a single 56k modem.
If you're honestly getting downloads at only 9-13 kilobytes per second, then you definately need to find a new ISP and fast.
A quick look in the CIA World Factbook shows:
Sweden - Social Democrats 36.5%, Moderates 22.7%, Left Party 12%, Christian Democrats 11.8%, Center Party 5.1%, Liberal Party 4.7%
Norway - - Labor Party 24.3%, Conservative Party 21.2%, Progress Party 14.6%, Socialist Left Party 12.5%
Finland - SDP 22.9%, Kesk 22.5%, Kok 21.0%, Leftist Alliance (Communist) 10.9%, SFP 5.(SDP= Socialist)
Belgium - VLD 15.4%, CVP 14.7%, PRL 10.6%, PS 9.7%, VB 9.4%, SP 8.9% (Note: PS is the Socialist Party, as is SP)
Germany - SPD 40.9%, Alliance '90/Greens 6.7%, CDU/CSU 35.1%, FDP 6.2%, PDS 5.1% (SPD= Socialist, PDS= Communist/Socialist)
Looks pretty Socialist to me.